September 6, 2016

Barton Hall Construction Cancels Traditional Homecoming Concert

With the traditional homecoming concert venue, Barton Hall, under construction and Cornell Athletics unwilling to provide an alternative venue, there will be no homecoming concert this fall.

Mason Montgomery ’17, executive director of the Cornell Concert Commission, said the group encountered many obstacles in trying to secure an alternative venue.

“Over the past year, [CCC] went through the entire possible list — the Arts Quad, Schoellkopf field, even down to the practice fields — but we were unable to get these spaces because they are being used by Cornell Athletics,” Montgomery said.

Relocating to Libe Slope would have been logistically and financially unworkable, as the location requires a large number of student volunteers to secure, which would be difficult to achieve with classes in session, according to Montgomery.

CCC was unable to move the concert to Appel Fields as well, as the venue requires noise permits from all of the surrounding neighborhoods.

The organization also spoke with the Cornell University Program Board about securing a speaker to replace homecoming’s traditional musical act, but were unable to negotiate use of Bartels Hall with Cornell Athletics.

With all routes to a homecoming concert seemingly closed, CCC decided to use extra funding from the previous fiscal year to host the free Arts Quad concert that took place on Aug. 27, according to Montgomery. The club also worked with class councils to concurrently host a small Welcome Weekend event on Ho Plaza.

“It’s inconvenient for the Cornell community, and we hope to make it up to the students, especially the seniors, by providing a bigger Barton concert in the spring, and possibly higher-budget concerts in Bailey Hall in the fall,” Montgomery said.

Several students expressed their disappointment that there will be no traditional concert this year; Gail Fletcher ’17 called the event a “major aspect of homecoming.”

“It’s really disappointing because for the past three years the concerts have been very enjoyable and memorable,” Fletcher said.

However, he added that he does not believe the change will drastically affect attendance at other events or jeapordize the weekend’s success.

“The event that people are most excited about is Slope Day,” he said. “If that was cancelled, it would be a complete disaster. There would be riots.”

Even without a concert, the traditional homecoming festivities, including fireworks and a laser lights show on Friday and the football game on Saturday, will still occur as scheduled this year.

Nearly every student knew that Carly Rae Jepsen would be playing at Barton Hall on Sunday, but there weren’t many that seemed to be going. There wasn’t a steady stream of them trudging up from Collegetown, and people that I talked to treated the fact that I was going more as a gag than a given.